I wish I were confident and strong enough to be able to say that I agree with the following philosophy. I'm posting it on this forum for discussion, hoping that we all might be able appreciate and perhaps understand another point of view. . . even if it is different from our own. GEM

Understandably, after the tragedy in New York and Washington DC on September 11 many have written or called the office to find out what would be an appropriate nonviolent response to such an unbelievably inhuman act of violence.

First, we must understand that nonviolence is not a strategy that we can use in a moment of crisis and discard in times of peace. Non violence is about personal attitudes, about becoming the change we wish to see in the world. Because, a nation's collective attitude is based on the attitude of the individual. Nonviolence is about building positive relationships with all human beings - relationships that are based on love, compassion, respect, understanding, and appreciation.

Nonviolence is also about not judging people as we perceive them to be - that is, a murderer is not born a murderer; a terrorist is not born a terrorist. People become murderers, robbers, and terrorists because of circumstances and experiences in life. Killing or confining murders, robbers, terrorists, or the like is not going to rid this world of them. For every one we kill or confine we create another hundred to take their place. What we need to do is to analyze dispassionately what are those circumstances that create such monsters and how can we help eliminate those circumstances, not the monsters. Justice should mean reformation and not revenge.

We saw some people in Iraq and Palestine and I dare say many other countries rejoice in the blowing up of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It horrified us, as it should. But, let us not forget that we do the same thing. When Israel bombs the Palestinians we either rejoice or show no compassion. Our attitude is they deserve what they get. When the Palestinians bomb the Israelis we are indignant and condemn them as vermin who need to be eliminated.

We reacted without compassion when we bombed the cities of Iraq. I was among the millions in the United States who sat glued to the television and watched the drama as though it was a made for television film. The television had desensitized us. Thousands of innocent men, women and children were being blown to bits and instead of feeling sorry for them, we marveled at the efficiency of our military. For more than ten years we have continued to wreak havoc in Iraq - an estimated 50, 000 children die every year because of sanctions that we have imposed - and it hasn't moved us to compassion. All this is done, we are told, because we want to get rid of the Satan called Sadam Hussein.

Now we are getting ready to do this all over again to get rid of another Satan called Osama Bin Laden. We will bomb the cities of Afghanistan because they harbor the Satan and in the process we will help create a thousand other bin Ladens.

Some might say, "We don't care what the world thinks of us as long as they respect our strength. After all we have the means to blow this world to pieces since we are the only surviving super-power. Do we want the world to respect us the way school children respect a bully? Is that our role in the world?

If a bully is what we want to be then we must be prepared to face the same consequences a school-yard bully faces. On the other hand we cannot tell the world "Leave us alone..." Isolationism is not what this world is built for.

All of this brings us back to the question: How do we respond nonviolently to terrorism?

The consequences of a military response are not very rosy. Many thousands of innocent people will die both here and in the country or countries we attack. Militancy will increase exponentially and, ultimately, we will be faced with another, more pertinent, moral question: What will we gain by destroying half the world? Will we be able to live with a clear conscience?

We must acknowledge our role in helping create monsters in the world and then find ways to contain these monsters without hurting more innocent people and then redefine our role in the world. I think we must move from seeking to be respected for our military strength to being respected for our moral strength.

We need to appreciate that we are in a position to play a powerful role in helping the "other half" of the world attain a better standard of life not by throwing a few crumbs, but by significantly involving ourselves in constructive economic programs.

For too long our foreign policy has been based on "what is good for the United States." It smacks of selfishness. Our foreign policy should now be based on what is good for the world and how can we do the right thing to help the world become more peaceful.

To those who have lost loved ones in this and other terrorist acts, I say I share your grief. I am sorry that you have become victims of senseless violence. But let this sad episode not make you vengeful because no amount of violence and killing is going to bring you inner peace. Anger and hate never do. The memory of those victims who have died in this and other violent incidents around the world will be better preserved and meaningfully commemorated if we all learn to forgive and dedicate our lives to helping create a peaceful, respectful, and understanding world.

I think many of us know Arun Gandi is speaking the truth. However, a "War" will be fought but the true enemy will survive...society just can`t seem to evolve past "give me!".."mine!" and "if I can`t have it.." I look at my children and feel sad for those who will soon loose theirs.

Ghandi's words are an inspiration, yet, in some aspects, they are misleading as well.

"One is not born a murderer," is false. Genetic research has shown that certain people, with a specific genetic defect, ARE indeed born murderers. This brings into question what we do with people who actually ENJOY inflicting pain on others.

I am not talking about people who play games in the privacy of their own bedrooms, but of the people who actually enjoy blowing other people up, injuring small children in school busses, schools and hospitals.

It is all well and good to say, "We will respond with love and they will change," but history has shown that there ARE evil people in this world. People who take great delight in inflicting injury and death on others simply BECAUSE they enjoy doing it.

My father was the staff artist for Chicago Today Newspaper and covered the Richard Speck murder trial in the 60's. He came home and said, "I have seen true evil today," when he came home from the first day of the trial.

Speck enjoyed hurting people. He readily admitted that in the smuggled videotape that Joel Daly showed on his programs and which made national news.

John Wayne Gacy, Dhamer and many others killed simply because they got a sexual thrill out of the act.

No matter how much love we respond with, these people would continue to kill.

Unfortunately, love is NOT always the answer. Nor is turning the other cheek.

In some cultures, to not strike back is considered a sign of weakness - a sign that one can take the next step and punish or hurt the target even more.

From my understanding of the culture we are dealing with, this is something of a social more.

A war on terrorism is something the United States has never really had to deal with in the first person before. Viet Nam was another nation, far away. Ireland has always been considered a "local" issue. Israel and Palestine, the same.

Now, it's on our doorstep. The hatred for our abandonment of the Afghans when the Russians pulled out, the sanctions against many mid-east countries that, in their view, unnecessarily ruin civilian populations needlessly, our support of certain factions in many regions of the world and our primarily Judeo-Christian world view all bring the focus of hatred onto us.

Solve it with love?

In some ways, possible. Lifting sanctions on medical and food aid to many of the Islamic countries would be a good start, but at a price - they have to render all intelligence on terrorist groups to us. They would have to dismantle the training camps these monsters use to wage their wars from. They would have to surrender to the World Court (NOT a US court - too easy to point the finger and say - "SETUP!!")any terrorists in their countries for trial.

This way, we are not "knuckling under" to terrorist pressures.

Military responses should be extremely covert and NOT make the news - AND should be effective. Making the news inflames anti-US sentiment in the region.

One can only turn one's cheek so many times before one runs out of cheeks and starts taking serious shots to the body.

Or, as Sensei used to say - "Good blocking IS good karate." We need to improve our blocking, but we also need to work on our image in that region. That would be a good block. Remove the focus of the anger and the anger dissipates or transfers to another target.

Do that and we will seriously lessen the probability of more disasters such as Black Tuesday.

Genetic reseach = determining murderers before birth. Think of the implications...I much rather deal with the low % of "bad apples". I sum up what Gandi stated this way..being proactive intead of reactive will reduce the chances of history repeating itself. We must except that violence will always exist so therefore I agree with taking personnal responsibilty to "arm" ourselves as well as the "tribe" that we feel part of. I have witnessed community programs that used many resources in a cordinated effort (police,social services,schools)to identify and redirect potential "bad apples" therefore reducing the chances of me having to react to a violent situation. A long road to apply that concept on a Worldwide scale..small steps first.

My reply was not to espouse any idea of a genetic police state, but to point out a scientifically provable flaw in Mr. Ghandi's theory. The double-y gene is a pretty good indicator and there ARE people out there who simply enjoy hurting others. Sorry if I was not clear on that point. My apologies.

I fully support any idea that will lower violence, but to take the stance that love conquers all is a great way to wind up extinct.

My major point, which I guess I didn't make all that well is that there are people out there who just plain enjoy hurting others. They get off on it, whether sexually or in other ways.

That kind of person is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to "love" out of their deviant behavior set.

Love is the answer in many cases. In other cases it takes a strong, physical defense - or offense - to protect those people and ideas which are important to us.

We are facing a new kind of war. A war without real armies, without nationalities being involved as such, a war without borders that strikes with a random violence against civilian targets.

I, for one, believe that those who target such things as school busses are not deserving of anything but revilement and need to be removed from this plane of existence as quickly as possible, regardless of race, creed, color, religion or nationality.

If that's under-evolved - so be it.

But one can only be pushed so far before all one cares for is pushed over the precipice and into oblivion and chaos.

Being proactive in this war means many things - righting the wrongs against the peoples who feel the pain of our neglect, working humanitarian projects for the betterment of our less fortunate brothers and sisters of the world, working as a cohesive and caring people to aid those in need.

BUT, it also means taking a strong stand against those who would hurl the world as we know it into the fires of hatred, murder and war.

It means taking the stand that says - "They shall not pass," as well as saying, "brother, we are here to help you feed yourself, sister, we are here to help you care for your family, child, we are here to keep the ravages of disease and famine from your life.

If we wage the war on both of these fronts, the world will be a better place.

It sounds like we're saying many of the same things. I just pointed out a small flaw - the human flaw that makes everything so much more complex than perhaps any of us can perceive.

Different it is the attitude as opposed to the life and to the things when the internal revelation hurts like the ray. Following the steps slowly, meditating the saying and by still saying, you can turn without sense in sense. It is not indifferent what you do with your life. Your life, submissive laws, is exposed before possibilities to choose. I do not speak to you of freedom. I speak to you of liberation, movement, process. I do not speak you of freedom like something quiet, but to free itself step by step, as she is freed of the necessary crossed way the one that approaches its city. Then, lo that is due to do. it does not depend on a distant, incomprehensible and conventional moral, but of laws: evolution, light, life laws. There are the calls here " Principles ", that can help in the search of the inner unit.1, The principle of Adaptation " To go against the evolution of the things, it is to go against one same one. " This Principle, emphasizes that when in advance the outcome of an event is known, the correct attitude is the one to accept it with the greater possible depth, trying to still remove advantage from the unfavorable thing. To examine moments of the life at which we did not have knowledge of this Principle and therefore we built in opposite, will illustrate to us properly on the meaning of the same one. He will be more interesting still, to reflect on the moment which we are living and to study the consequences of suffering for us and our next people, in case of not considering the Principle. We are explaining that the things to which we do not have to oppose to us, are those that has an inevitable character. If the human being, for example, had thought that the diseases were inevitable, medical science never had advanced. Thanks to the necessity to solve problems and the possibility of doing it, the humanity progresses. If a person is single in the desert, is inevitable that dies? That person will make the effort find exits to her situation and, in effect, she will find an oasis either will find it to her with the more facility, if she used all the resources possible to be made see the distance. Thus she is that this Principle is based in the situation of the inevitable thing, to be applied correctly. 2, The principle of action and reaction " When forces something towards an aim, you produce the opposite. " This Principle emphasizes that the people and the things have certain behaviors and that they resist or they facilitate our projects if we acted suitably. When moved by irrational impulses, we pressed something against its own behavior, will observe that it will be able to yield before our exigencies, but the short consequence to or long term, will be that they will return effects different from which we wanted to obtain. The human being is forjador of events, gives direction of the things, tends to plan and to fulfill projects. In sum, one goes towards aims. But the question is: how it goes towards his aims? How it makes understand to another person the solution of a present problem: the violent one or persuades it? If the violent one, now or later will be reaction. If it persuades it, now or later the forces will be added. Many think that " the aim justifies means " and build around forcing everything to his, obtaining often successful results. In that case, the difficulty comes later. The aim has been obtained, but it is not possible to be maintained for a long time. The Principle that we are commenting, talks about two different situations. In one, the looked for aim is obtained, but the consequences are opposed the awaited thing. In another one, by forcing of situations, a " unfavorable bounce " is obtained.

3, The principle of the opportune action " you are not against a great force. It backs down until that is debilitated, then, advances with resolution. " This Principle, does not recommend to back down before the small disadvantages, or the problems whereupon we encountered daily. It is only backed down, according to explains the Principle, before irresistible forces, such that doubtlessly exceed us when facing them. To back down before the small difficulties debilitates people, it makes pusilánime and afraid. Not to back down before great forces, does to inclined people to all type of failures and accidents. The problem appears when it is not known early who has more force, if the one or difficulty. That will have to verify itself taking small muestras., doing small confrontations that do not jeopardize the situation totally and that let space free to change of position if this one outside untenable one. Formerly, it was spoken of prudencia., that was an idea very next to that we are explaining. But there is another point: When to advance? At what moment the disadvantage has been reduced in force, or, at what moment have gained we in force? He is worth the same idea to take muestras. as much each doing small attempts nondefinitive. When the force is to our favor and the disadvantage has been debilitated, the advance must be total. To keep reserves in such situation, is to jeopardize the triumph because it does not go away ahead with all the energy available. 4, The proportion principle " the things are well when they march altogether, not separately. " This means, that if impelled by an objective desacomodamos all our life, the profit of the looked for result will be put under numerous accidents and still, if indeed is obtained, it will have bitter consequences. If, to obtain money or prestige, desacomodamos our health, we sacrificed our wanted people, despreocupamos us of other values, etc., is possible that such accidents arise, that we do not obtain the looked for result. In other cases, it can be that we obtain it but no longer there will be health to enjoy it, neither wanted beings with those who to share, nor other values that give sense us. Las things are well when they march altogether. and this is thus, because our life is a assembly that requires balance and suitable development, nonpartial. Although there are more important things that others, each person must have a true scale of values so that the primary thing, the secondary thing, the tertiary thing, could be fulfilled proportionally. With the force that must be applied to each thing according to the fixed importance, all would march in true assembly. 5, The conformity principle " If for tí they are the day well and the night, the summer and the winter, you have surpassed the contradictions. " This Principle emphasizes in appeared form the opposition of the situations. Nevertheless, such opposition could be conciliated if the point of view with respect to the problems is modified. The excessive heat of the summer, makes think compensatoriamente about the cold of the winter and to the inverse one. All difficult situation makes evoke or imagine to its antagonistic one, but once in her, it returns the disagreement. Then, the compensation takes us point to its opposite. There where it appears the suffering, the compensation will be started, but for that reason the same suffering will not be overcome. He is very different the point of view and the behavior as opposed to the difficulties, on the part of that are oriented by a defined sense of life. If they alquien it thinks that its life has a sense and that everything what happens to him serves to its learning and improvement in that direction, the problems that to him appear will not compensatoriamente tend to be eluded, but that will assume also discovering them in them some utility. The cold of the winter will be usable and also the heat of the summer and when each one appears, that person will say: En what are against the stations, if both they serve to me?

7, The principle of the immediate action " If you persecute an aim you are chained. If everything what beams you make it as if outside an aim in itself, you free yourself. " Standard to obtain benefit of all intermediate situation that takes us to the profit of an objective. It does not say that aims do not have to exist, since the planning of any activity is made with aims. It is being explained which given to an aim anyone, all the steps that take him, they must be considered of the possible most positive way. Otherwise, any activity previous to profit of aim produces suffering and therefore, if it is that the aim is obtained, loses sense by the vital cost that it represents the suffering inverted in the steps. 8, The principle of the included/understood action " You will make disappear your conflicts when you understand them in its last root, not when you want to solve them. " It invites to avoid the improvisation moved by irrational impulses. It does not say that it is not necessary to do something, given a problem, but that simultaneously when doing, must be included/understood. Almost all the people, as opposed to a conflict and moved by their anxiety, send themselves to solve it without including/understanding it in their root. Of that way, complica still more the problem and this one are motivated to another one, in an inexhaustible chain. 9, The freedom principle " When you harm the others, you are chained. But, if you do not harm others, you can do whatever you want with freedom. " Of beginning it explains that to create problems to the others, it has by consequence that the others are created it to one. In addition, it says that there is reason no to let do what it is wanted if nobody is harmed with such action. 10. The solidarity principle " When you treat to the others as you want that they treat to you, you free yourself ". This Principle is of great consequences because it takes to an opening, to a positive communication with the other human beings. We know that the encerramiento in one same one, generates problems more or less serious. The call egoísmo. can indeed be reduced to a problem of encerramiento and lack of communication. The Principle grants importance to the fact of going positively towards the others and complements in the beginning previous that it recommends: No you harm others, but the difference between both, is great. 11. The principle of negation of the opposite ones " it does not matter in what side has put you the events; what matters is that you include/understand that you have not chosen any side. " Here it is not explained that there is to leave all side. Here it is suggested to consider the position in which one is, like result of factors other peoplés to the own selection; educational factors, of atmosphere, etc. Such attitude makes back down the fanaticism, to the time that allow to include/understand sides and the positions that assume other people. Evidently, this form to consider the problem of sides contributes to the freedom of the mind and tends a bridge fraterno, towards the other people even though these do not agree with my ideas, or apparently they are against my ideas. This Principle, to the time that recognizes the lack of freedom in the situations that one has not construído, affirms the freedom to deny the oppositions if they are part of the same situations. In other words: I not have decided to be high or low, fat or thin and if that condition is accompanied of oppositions to which they did not choose its side either, I have freedom to deny that opposition. I did not invent to the stops, the low ones, the fat people or the thin ones, therefore I deny all responsible opposition.

12. The principle of accumulation of the actions " the contradictory or unitivos acts are accumulated in tí. If you repeat your acts of internal unit, already nothing will be able detenerte. " Here one means that all act that is made is left engraving in the memory and from it influences there in the other channels. Therefore, the repetition of acts that give internal unit or that generate contradiction, is forming a conduct that conditions to the later actions in some of both felt. To repeat the acts of internal unit, means to exercise the Principles in the daily life. Also one occurs to understand that one is not the repetition of an act (or of an isolated Principle), but of a assembly of acts of internal unit. Without a doubt which when exercising all the Principles, we were with an integral discipline, able to be transforming our sufriente condition into a new form of life of increasing internal unit and, therefore, of increasing happiness. Sometimes, adding contradictory acts, the life of a person or a human assembly is constructed. Also it happens that they can appear many successful results during a time, but sooner or later the catastrophe will take place because the base of all that life is false. Much people see only the successful anecdotes, but she does not reach to include/understand the process of that life and, mainly, its absurd end. You will be like a force of the Nature, when to its step it does not find resistance. It learns to distinguish what it is difficulty, problem, disadvantage, of which it is contradiction. If those moves to you or they urge to you, this one immobilizes to you in closed circle. When you find a great force, joy and goodness in your heart or when you feel frees and without contradictions, immediately it is thankful in your interior. When the opposite happens to you, he requests with faith and that gratefulness that you accumulated will return turned and extended into benefit. Principle non violenceM Gandhi------------------------------------------Carlos Ciriza Sensei

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